Authors: Elizabeth Buchan
‘I only sail a wilder sea/A darker wave …’ but, as was increasingly the case, Emily B was no help at all. She had spent most of her life ignoring her body and its surroundings and turning inward. How else could she have written
Wuthering Heights
? Smarting, jealous, ashamed and, at the same time, stirred by her stolen night, this Emily knew she was unlikely to produce a
Wuthering Heights
. Or, for that matter, to reject the body as comprehensively as her namesake had done.
‘Jake rang up to see if he could do anything. So thoughtful of him.’ Annie swapped Rollo’s lead from one hand to the other and they continued walking in a silence that had turned slightly ominous.
Emily returned to the original topic of conversation. ‘Sex is different, these days. It’s not so revered. It’s lost the moral element. Your generation started it.’
‘I’m just concerned you don’t run into trouble, Em. Or spoil your chances of developing a relationship. That’s all.’
Definitely quaint
, thought Emily, and shrugged off the faint question mark as to why Mike hadn’t rung to check she had got home safely. (She had planned to describe the tantalizing early light thrown over the park et cetera, et cetera, designed to convey her empathy with the natural world.)
Her mother rubbed at her empty finger in the absentminded way she had developed and, recollecting with some pain the ring and its five-stone sparkle, Emily said, ‘I’m sorry about your ring, Mum. At least you won’t have to choose which daughter to leave it to.’
They had moved into a patch of sunlight in which the distress on her mother’s tired features was all too evident. ‘Oh, Emily …’ She turned away, bent down and clipped on Rollo’s lead. ‘I wish you hadn’t said that.’
Emily backtracked. ‘Sorry, Mum, it was tactless.’
To her horror, Annie grabbed her by the shoulders. A vein beat at her temple and her eyes were dark with fatigue. ‘Don’t you understand that if you lose a child, they haunt you? Pray that you will never know. They are far more with you, more present, I mean, than if they were there. They’re stamped on your consciousness and there’s nothing you can do about it.’
‘It was a joke, Mum.’
‘Bad one.’
Partly because she was feeling sensitive over the non-call from Mike, partly because the jealousy fingers had not done squeezing, Emily lost it. ‘Don’t
you
understand?’ she blazed at her mother. ‘You have another daughter. Isn’t she good enough for you?’
Chapter Twenty-one
Tom was at the computer. The front door slammed. Moments later, it slammed a second time. The noise oscillated through the house. No doubt someone was angry but Tom paid no attention. Even the most basic acquaintance with the law of averages would suggest that, in a full house, someone in it was bound to be indignant, irritated or fed-up. ‘Sometimes I think we’ll suffer colony collapse, like bees,’ Annie had remarked.
‘Sometimes I think I’ll kill everyone,’ Tom bit back. ‘We’re like rats in a sack.’
Formerly so contained, well-mannered and often silent, the house had metamorphosed into the crammed old woman’s shoe of the nursery rhyme. Or, alternatively, the witch’s gingerbread house with bulging walls and sugar partitions. It featured in his dreams, with lights flickering in the windows, surrounded by darkness where the wild animals roamed.
He reapplied himself to the screen and scrutinized it with mounting anxiety. It definitely looked choppy and the City was awash with rumours. Curious how one’s attitudes could change. In common with many of his former colleagues, Tom was sceptical of the money men. He had always regarded bankers like laxatives, unpleasant but necessary. But now? As Tom fought to make the kind of smart, rapid decisions that they made all day and every day (even with the small amounts he was using) he was, to his astonishment, developing a grudging respect.
Some people could not pay their gas and water bills. (At least, he and Annie could still do that.) Some went down and lived half-lives on the pond bottom. Some threw themselves off bridges. He wasn’t at that stage.
But he was running with risk. He knew that and wrestled with it – but it was difficult to shuck it off. The queasiness of the market sucked him in. Its promise and lure of rewards were one thing – its dark side almost as addictive. Mixing with it made him feel alive.
Above the computer on the bookshelves, and immediately accessible to anyone entering the room, were ranged the books he had bought in a former life. There were fat volumes of political memoirs …
Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man
and
The Frock-Coated Communist
, that sort of thing, allied with respectable poetry (invariably edited by an intellectual well known to the BBC), with Richard Dawkins thrown in.
They were perfectly displayed to impress. He pulled out the one closest to him, a biography of Orwell. Its spine creaked in the way those of hardback books often did – and Tom crazily imagined that he had released a sound wave from his past that he almost couldn’t recognize. He shoved it back into place. Everyone should read about George Orwell. One day he would too. He really, really would.
The more he thought about the job he used to have, the more Tom was astonished that he had pulled it off for so long. In those days, he had worn competence and confidence like a second skin. These days, he doubted he would ever be competent or confident again.
He reapplied himself to the screen. Share prices were yo-yoing.
Get out
, said a voice in his head.
Get out
.
Later on that day he went to visit his mother in St Brigid’s.
Hermione’s bed was at the end of G3 ward, under a window that looked out over a concrete strip in which dozens of refuse bins were lined up like skittles.
Bearing a bedpan, a nurse drew the curtains around the bed next door. From it issued her cheerful ‘How are we today, Mrs Siddons?’ and the fretful, murmured reply, ‘I was sleeping.’ A couple of physios flanked the bed of a bottle blonde in full makeup – seventy-five if she was a day, Tom reckoned – and discussed whether or not the bathroom in her flat had a handrail. All three were thoroughly absorbed in the subject. A staff nurse inspected a couple of clipboards at the ends of bed, moving in a magisterial manner that belied her youth.
Lapped in hospital sheets, Hermione was tucked in tightly and, encased in plaster, her pinned arm resembled a piece of plumbing. A drip fed into her uninjured arm, and a catheter was draped modestly under the blanket. Her eyes were closed and, from time to time, she emitted a shuddering breath.
Tom sat on the plastic chair by the bed and, avoiding the tubes, took possession of her undamaged hand. It was the most affectionate gesture he could ever remember making towards his mother and he felt out of practice.
Bill, his father, had been given to bear hugs and Tom had loved him with all the capacity of his boyish heart. Could he remember being cuddled by Hermione as a child? Not really. There
must
have been times because Tom never doubted that Hermione loved him – even if she hadn’t been the easiest of mothers.
Hermione’s eyes opened and fixed on Tom. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Visiting you.’
She closed them again and appeared to fall asleep. Tom got up and collared the staff nurse tapping a keyboard at the desk. She informed him that Hermione was fine but a little out of it post-op. ‘The elderly take a while to settle down after an anaesthetic,’ she pointed out. ‘It’s a big deal for them.’ Her fingers never ceased their tarantella. ‘Oh, and by the way, Physio will want to talk to you about her return. They need to know if there are safeguards in place.’
Going back to his vigil, Tom almost collided with Annie, who had descended from Admin. ‘I’ve been warned we’ll have to put in safeguards when Hermione comes home,’ he said. ‘Handrails and things, I imagine.’
The news must have been unwelcome but by not so much as a flicker did she reveal it. ‘Handrails are only the beginning. She’ll need extra care, Tom. We’ll have to think about that.’
‘Oh, Lord,’ said Tom. ‘I don’t really have the time.’
‘Don’t say that.’
Old sins.
‘What?’ He knew perfectly well ‘what’.
‘You never have time.’
They exchanged a look. Both knew what the other was thinking. Both understood. ‘Correction,’ he said. ‘I’ll make time.’
Annie poked his arm in a friendly way. ‘The last thing on earth you want to do is to look after an elderly lady, even if she is your mother, but you’ll look after a baby.’
Old flesh versus new unblemished flesh. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘Oh, my God …’ Annie was struck by a problem. ‘How are we going to bath Hermione? She hates showers.’
They had reached Hermione’s bed. ‘You mustn’t talk about me behind my back.’ Hermione had woken up and was observing their approach.
She looked cross and uncomfortable. A tear rolled out of the corner of one eye and Annie dabbed it away with a tissue. ‘Of course we’re talking about you. What do you expect? Does this eye hurt?’
‘A bit.’
‘And the arm?’
‘It’s had a pin put into it,’ Hermione explained, to her seven-year-old daughter-in-law. ‘It’s going to hurt.’
‘Hermione!’
She lifted her good hand and beckoned to Annie. ‘Have you got it?’
‘Got what?’ asked Tom.
‘Never you mind.’ Annie interposed herself between Tom and his mother, bent over and whispered something to Hermione.
‘Is there a mystery?’ inquired Tom, as they left the ward.
‘I’m not sure, to be honest,’ said Annie, ‘but I can’t tell you unless I have her permission.’
That night as he undressed, Tom felt peculiarly conscious of Hermione’s absence. He eased off his shirt to reveal a ribcage under which beat a fragile heart. Mortality had pointed half a finger at his mother and, by extension, at himself. Then there were the practical problems to sort out. He stared out of the window.
‘Are you all right, Tom?’
Annie had crept up behind him.
‘I’m fine.’
She placed a hand on his bare back. ‘No, you’re not.’
The weight of her hand was comforting. He wanted to turn around and face her – but was nervous that her comfort might prove an illusion.
‘Tom,’ said Annie. ‘Losing your job is a form of bereavement, and it’s not surprising you feel so dreadful.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, after a moment.
‘You’re trying not to mind that I still have one and you think I don’t understand?’
He swallowed. ‘Something like that.’
She left her hand where it was, and her fingers splayed around the curve of his ribs. ‘You can’t make me feel sorry or guilty that I have a job,’ she pointed out entirely fairly, ‘but I can try to put myself in your place.’
‘I know.’
‘Once upon a time …’
‘Once upon a time?’
‘We understood what each other was thinking.’
‘Did we? Nice to think so.’
She sighed. ‘You weren’t always so cynical.’
Some of her hair had worked free from the combs she wore to the office, lending her a charming dishevelment. There was a tiny scratch on her chin – a badge donated by Maisie’s sharp little nails – and her red lipstick had worn off, leaving a penumbra of colour at the edge of her lips, the kind of effect seen after a long night out. He would not draw attention to these imperfections. Actually, ‘imperfections’ was the wrong word: they seemed to him to enhance Annie. Even odder, Tom felt the nightclub lipstick and rogue curls
belonged
to him.
‘What are you looking at?’
‘You.’
She breathed in sharply. ‘Any particular reason?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
She observed his slippers on the floor. ‘It’s late and I have to do some work before going to bed.’ But she remained where she was. ‘Tom …’ She lifted her eyes to his. ‘I’ve quarrelled with Emily and I feel dreadful.’
‘What about?’
‘The usual,’ she responded miserably. ‘Mia.’ She rubbed her finger. ‘Something’s gone between me and Emily. Perhaps it wasn’t ever there, but I’ve been too busy to notice.’ He watched regret … disappointment … bewilderment … cross her features. ‘Tom, why have I failed my daughters? Children grow up and you can’t speak to them any more. They go away. They don’t
want
you.’
Tom moved closer to her. She was warm, and scented with a fragrance he recognized: he had given it to her long ago.
‘What are you doing?’ she murmured. She turned her head towards him, the movement exposing the long neck, and smiled at him shyly. It struck him as extraordinary that, after all these years, she should be shy with him.
He pulled her to him. ‘This.’ She was half resisting, half surrendering. She was both familiar and unknown. To his astonishment, he was embarking on a crash course about what the woman he had lived with for so long felt like, moved like, smelt like.
Tom kissed the nape of Annie’s neck where he knew it pleased her. She murmured, cupping the back of his head with a hand. He moved his mouth up to her jaw and, then, with increasing intensity, kissed the corner of her mouth.
Her body surrendered in the old way. He tightened his grip and edged them both towards the bed. Annie breathed fast. Anticipation and pleasure swept away other considerations. There was a place behind her ear where he had loved to put his mouth and to breathe in the scent of her skin and hair. It was his private act of possession and no one else owned the right of trespass. ‘I’m no beauty,’ she had said to him once. But, ignorant of the effect of her creamy skin and fine bones, she was.
Giggling a little, Annie fell backwards on to the bed, and he levered himself on top of her. Raising his head, he gazed into her face. ‘I don’t believe this.’
She smiled up at him and, for once, there was no hesitation or distrust.
‘Annie …’
There was a knock on the door. ‘Hey, Dad, are you in there? Can I come in?’
Before either of them could answer, Jake thrust his way into the room and came to a dead halt. ‘Oh. My. God.
Sorry
.’
‘Get out,’ said Tom, not unpleasantly.
‘I thought Mum was working downstairs … otherwise …’ Jake grinned offensively in a way only children could do. ‘Parents snogging, eh? Need any advice?’